A Forbidden Love
by EmeraldMuse
Summary: What will happen when Harry realizes his feelings for Hermione, and how is he going to get rid of that bothersome Ginny? How will Hermione react when she discovers Harry's true feelings, and will their friendship with Ron survive? HHr cliche, fluff, might
1. Chapter 1

Summary: What will happen when Harry realizes his feelings for Hermione, and how is he going to get rid of that bothersome Ginny? How will Hermione react when she discovers Harry's true feelings, and will their friendship with Ron survive?

Author's Note: H/Hr cliche, fluff, might get risque later on...in which case the rating will be bumped up to M.

**Forbidden Love**

_Chapter 1_

A certain raven haired young man awoke with a start in his comfortable four poster bed, as he had so many nights before. His emerald tinted eyes darted about the room with viridian intensity as he attempted to recall the details of the dream that had just woken him so forcefully from what had heretofore been a peaceful night. There had been dark figures clouded in a murky fog of some sort…and someone had been calling his name. Was that right? The Boy Who Lived shook his dark locks of hair away from his sweaty brow and leaned back against the wall before deciding that sleep would be too elusive to continue his nightly rest.

Grunting softly as he carefully lifted his sore appendages from the plump mattress, he trudged down to the common room as quietly as he could while trying to stifle a determined yawn from escaping his maw. Feeling the remnants of sleep still clouding his vision, he reached his hands up to brush the crust out of his corneas. He was still recovering from his abrupt awakening and so lost in thought that he didn't notice the form huddled on the common room couch before he almost placed his derriere upon whoever it was.

Harry almost instantly recognized the shape snuggled cozily against the couch, even though she lay face down, by the large volume placed upon the reading table adjacent to the couch. Tentatively lifting the massive book, he realized it was _Hogwarts: A History_; it had been left open, face down upon the table. Harry was surprised Hermione would kill the spine of her favorite book by such careless abandon. He smiled, figuring that she must have come back down to the common room to read once everyone had fallen asleep and had dozed off In the middle of her own reading. Well, assuming the fact that she was draped in a chaste, shapeless aquamarine nightgown was an indication of the validity of her theory.

He began leafing through Hogwarts' biography with mild interest; he had never read the book, despite Hermione's constant nagging. Near the end of the tome, Harry felt a bulge against his clammy palm. After flipping a few dozen more pages or so, Harry discovered a small, cheesy muggle romance novel tucked away between two pages. Harry had to stifle a laugh at this, so as not to wake the quietly snoring figure pressed against the couch.

A cross breeze from the separate dormitories chilled the room, and he noticed Hermione shiver perceptively and draw her limbs closer to her torso, hugging herself to keep warm. Smiling softly again, Harry tiptoed silently over to a cupboard pressed against the east wall of the room and retrieved a woolen blanket from its depths and returned to the sitting area. Very carefully, he slid the blanket over her body and tucked it under her. To his pleasure, Hermione smiled and murmured sweet nothings into the quilt wrapped tenderly around her body. Harry stopped himself when he realized he had been rubbing Hermione's back, which was currently facing him. A slight pang of guilt mingled with confusion, fighting for control of his thoughts. He had been going out with Ginny since the end of last year, and here he was nearly feeling up his best friend in the middle of the night!

However, he wasn't so sure about things with Ginny. Last year, he had been certain that he wanted to pursue a relationship with the youngest of the Weasly offspring, but…over the summer, spent mostly at the Burrow with Ron and his family, he had begin to suspect that Ginny didn't like _him _so much as she idolized the idea of dating The Boy Who Lived. He had felt that this was the case since her first met her in second year. He wasn't sure how he felt about Hermione…yes, he found her physically appealing in a cute, bookish way, and she was always there for him…but…he wasn't sure exactly _how _attracted he was. Third year was the first time he had looked at Hermione as a woman…but if she had any feelings for him, she hid them well.

Deciding that there would be ample time for introspection the following morning, Harry dragged an armchair as quietly as he could to rest at the end of the couch where Hermione lay. She had rolled over sometime during his pensive musings, and the firelight from the dying inferno played shadows across the features of her face, rolling over contours of the flesh, telling of loneliness…Harry reached down and tenderly brushed a strand of her amber hair out of her face and let him hand rest on her rosy cheek for a moment, gently stroking her face with his thumb, before realizing that such contact had a possibility of waking her up. The combination of the firelight's shadows, the light smile that splayed across her fine features, and the way she had snuggled up against the blanket gave her the appearance of an angel lost deep in slumber.

Hermione's dozing figure had inspired in him another bout of sleep, and he could feel his lids drooping heavily against his eyes. _I'll have to ask her about the silly little romance book in the morning_ he thought. Sleep came, and he gladly gave himself to the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

Harry awoke to gentle shaking. "Mmmm…" he mumbled. "Five more minutes…" he slurred sleepily. For a moment, he thought he had earned a reprieve from the shaking, but then it continued more forcefully. Groggily, he forced his eyelids open centimeter by centimeter to the smiling face of Hermione.

"Morning, Harry. You've been out like a light; I must have been shaking you for five minutes before you finally woke up." Hermione said with an almost imperceptible curve to her lips. He was transfixed by those lips at that moment, and it was all he could to keep himself from reaching up right now and grabbing her face and - _Whoah, that's Hermione you're thinking about! She's your best friend! You're not supposed to think things like that about her! _But she does look very kissable this morning…another voice mouthed off inside his head. _Did I just think that about Hermione? Hermione Granger? _Yes, you did. Now shut up and -- Harry closed his eyes trying to fight off all the part's of his psyche and the strange urges he was having.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked with concern seeping into her voice. "Is it your scar, is it hurting again?" Her fingers gently slid up his face and touched his scar lightly. Harry coughed lightly after a minute or so and Hermione gave a start as though she had forgotten he was there. It was then that she realized how close they both were. She was leaning over him, her face mere inches from his. His emerald eyes seemed to bore into her soul and she felt her heart melt; she could stare into those eyes all day. Harry moved his head forward very slowly, almost imperceptibly.

"Harry, what are you…_Hermione?" _Both Harry and Hermione jumped slightly as Ginny gasped the last word from the entrance to the girl's dormitory from which she had just appeared.

"Oh, uh…good morning, Ginny." Harry offered feebly.

Panicking, Hermione blurted out "I have to go, see you later!" in one hurried breath as she jumped up, grabbing her school books and ran off saying something about getting to class.

"But classes don't start for another hour." Harry had pointed out after glancing at the clock, to which she feigned deafness as she left the room in a hurry. Harry raised his hand to the lightning bolt shaped scar that had cursed him for years and tentatively touched it, willing to feel Hermione's hand once more, and settled in to trying to explain what was going on.

"Well, you see, um…well, Hermione was walking over to me to help me with the Potions essay, when she tripped. Yeah, she tripped!" Harry explained lamely.

"Oh, and she tripped right onto your face, is that right?"

The last thing Hermione could hear before the portrait hole slammed shut was Ginny yelling.

_What just happened? _Hermione wondered frantically. She had dashed off to get away, to go anywhere but there, barely taking the time to gather up her books and such. _Did_ _I just try to kiss _Harry Potter? _He's my best friend! '_Well, so what? That's just saves you the trouble of getting to know each other' another side of her whispered in her ear. _But we're just friends. Yes, I love Harry, but it's completely platonic!_

Ron chose this inopportune moment to find her, as he always seemed to. It was as though he had a Hermione compass in his head…or somewhere slightly lower.

"Not now, Ron." Hermione said curtly, gathering up her things to take of once more, this time to go to class for real. She had been pondering that morning's happenings while resting up against a wall somewhere on the third floor of Hogwarts when Ron appeared. Apparently destiny had decided that she needed another bad day this week, because as she rose to leave, Ron grabbed her elbow.

"Why do you always run away from me whenever we're alone? I mean, with Harry around, we're perfectly fine. But when he's off doing something else, you always try to get away from me as soon as possible."

Hermione stifled a crude, hurtful remark as she saw the glint of confusion and pain in his eyes. She knew Ron had liked her for quite a while, but she had just never been able to reciprocate any form of romantic attraction to this read headed Weasly boy. She knew that if left together for long enough, Ron would try to make advancements on their relationship, which would only hurt their friendship in the end.

"I'm sorry, Ron." Hermione began. "It's just, I've had a bad morning and I wanted to be alone for a little bit to think about everything. Please don't take it personally." she said, lightly placing her had on Ron's arm. _Oops. Probably not the right thing to do. _Hermione thought as Ron seemed to light up a bit, encouraged. With a fleeting smile, she hurried off to her first class of the new school year.


End file.
